The dream went on and the dream ended.
With a start, she awoke in the dark, frightened, her body soaked with sweat. Panic rose in her throat as she felt real flesh against hers.
Her eyes widened and her throat constricted with fear.
She felt a body against hers and dampness between her legs. She struggled to sit up and groped blindly to see who her attacker was. She felt soft flesh and withdrew in terror.
"Oh my God," she managed to croak.
"Shhhh! Cathy," she heard a voice say. "It's me. Olive. Shhh! I won't hurt you. Be quiet."
Cathy almost fainted with' relief. She let out a sigh and breathed deeply as she composed herself. So it was only a dream and this was Olive with her.
But then she felt the hand on her breast and a moment later another one groping between her legs.
Her mouth opened and her body began to shudder.
CHAPTER SIX
Pete Lonsdale finished stocking the main cabin with supplies from the boat, as the two women made it habitable. Besides food, bedding and blankets, he brought a.22 rifle, his.38 pistol, portable short wave and marine radio, Coleman stove and heater, candles, hatchet, flare gun and flares, beer, whiskey, and colas. He made the last two trips to the boat by himself because he was hungry and wanted no distractions while he unloaded.
Jim began on the beer almost as soon as Pete had brought it. When the women had finished making up the one room adobe it looked homey enough for any camper. Bunny had put up barricades in the windows so that a great deal of the rain was kept out. With the candles lit and a Coleman heater going, the adobe became warm with the presence of people, of life.
"Soup's on," said Bunny after she had finished preparing a simple meal of hot dogs cut up into little ovals mixed with hash brown potatoes and a side dish of pork and beans. Pete handed each of them Boy Scout utensils and cracked open a beer for himself and Jim. The two women washed their food down with Cokes, and for a while there was no special tension in the adobe.
Afterwards, when they all sat around smoking, Pete brought it up.
"Well, I notice we have pretty tight sleeping quarters here," he said.
Silence.
"Not a bad arrangement for some people," Pete said.
Jim coughed but did not say anything.
"It's cozy," said Bunny, giving her husband a look.
"Yes, I'll say," said Darlene, not looking at her husband.
"That's my point," said Pete. "It's cozy and we're all together so we might as well make this just one big bed. We'll keep warmer that way and what the hell, we're all adults."
Jim looked up from his beer then. "I-I don't think I like that idea," he ventured.
"Oh, Jim," Darlene said. "Don't be so-so square."
There. It was out in the open.
"I don't know what you mean, Darlene. It's just-just not healthy-that's all."
"Bullshit!" roared Pete.
"Jim, we're all together here. One family. Right?" said Bunny. "Relax. You might even enjoy it."
Pete gave his wife a grateful glance. Jim looked pasty-faced and glum.
"Well, as long as we just sleep, I guess it's all right."
Pete, Darlene and Bunny all gave each other looks.
Jim coughed again self-consciously and sipped long on his beer. Pete puffed at his pipe and looked thoughtfully into its smoke.
Here were three people, he thought, willing to ball and one square in the group. The problem, as he saw it, was to convince that one outsider to go along with the group. He decided, after a moment, to plunge right in. This was the way he made all his moves and it had made him a rich man. He was decisive when decisions needed to be made and he saw no difference in this situation than many others he had faced when the stakes were different.
"Jim," Pete said, "I want to lay it on the line. Okay? We're all big kids here and while you've been swilling your goddamned beer and sitting all uptight with your own ball of wax, things've been happening. I mean it's like nineteen hundred and seventy one, things are different. People are freer nowadays. They don't swallow the bullshit they were raised with and they want to get with it. Be modern. Now I think you gotta realize that something's been going on here and you've been out of it. Right?"
"I-I guess so," Jim stuttered.
"You're damn right," Pete said. "Now, to put it bluntly, the rest of us here like a little variety in life. I know you like Bunny and she likes you. I dig your wife, Darlene, and she digs me, I think. The thing is, what're we gonna do about it? Hell, here we all are in a very groovy situation and it's time to swing. Get me? I mean, let your hair down, Jim boy, and get with it. I'll make it easy on you. Just close your eyes and let it happen. You don't have to say `yes,' 'no' or `maybe,' baby. We're all together here and we're going to do our thing. Just relax and enjoy yourself. With Bunny."
Jim stared at Pete with a look of utter bewilderment on his face.
"You mean you're asking me to-to make love to your wife?" he stammered.
"Is there something wrong with her?" Pete scowled.
"No-no of course not. But I mean it just isn't-isn't right. And I can't tell my wife to go along with such a thing." He gulped after he said it as six eyes stared at him.
"I said to just close your eyes. You don't have to give permission for anything. It's all taken care of. Now, my advice to you is to crawl in that corner over there and we'll blow out the lanterns and hit the sack. Don't think. Just lie there and let it happen. In the morning you'll feel better."
"Is-is this all right with you, Darlene?" Jim asked his wife, afraid to get an answer.
"Jim," she said kindly, "do what Pete says. Let's not sit around and discuss it. We're marooned out here on this island and, well, I guess the rules are different, that's all."
"Do you love me, Darlene?" Jim asked pathetically.
"Of course I do, honey," she said. She went to him and kissed him. He started to cry and she looked at him with half-pity and half-disgust.
"Go to bed, Jim," Pete ordered. "I'm shutting out the goddamned lights."
Bunny went over to Jim and pushed Darlene away. "Come on, Jim, relax. In the dark everything'll be all right."
Pete turned down the Coleman lantern slowly and the room got dimmer. He looked at the bewildered Jim and winked at Bunny. "Everything's going to be just fine," he said as the lamp went out and the room went dark.
Pete went to the opposite side of the room and began taking off his clothes. In a second, Darlene was beside him, her lips hungrily searching his neck and jaw for his mouth. She found him and they kissed as his shirt was halfway off. They could hear Bunny and Jim whispering on the other side of the room.
Bunny worked fast. She had Jim's fly open and his cock in her hand before he could protest what he knew must be happening with his wife. He felt sick to his stomach and a dark hatred began to form in his mind like a knife being sharpened by unseen hands. Pete Lonsdale was a no-good bastard and his wife, Darlene, well, she was nothing but a dirty whore after all these years of marriage! But Bunny was making him forget these things because her hand on his cock was exciting-the most exciting thing that had happened to him in a long time.
Jim heard her whispering in his ear and he did what she told him to do. He lay back on the sleeping bag and felt her loosening his Bermudas and slipping them down his legs. She took off his shoes in the dark and then he felt her mouth on his cock as it had been before. The memory of her mouth on the head of his prick brought a twinge that was exquisite pain.
He was glad that she was doing it to him in the dark. The dark hid so many things. He did not want to see her face. He did not want to see his cock in her mouth just yet. He did not want Darlene to see him with this look of rapture on his face. And he did not want to see Darlene and Pete across the room, his hands on her, perhaps his cock piercing her labia. Thinking these thoughts, Jim gave himself to Bunny Lonsdale, delighting in the perverse pleasure of his sex with her. He thrust upward with his shaft and felt it strike the back of Bunny's throat. He heard her gag and jammed his cock harder, wondering at his own viciousness.